My Job is Done, Go Face Your Next Challenge
by Adult With Spare Time
Summary: I'm the daughter of Bruno, Elite Four Member. I've lived in Kanto's Indigo Mountains my whole life. After Dad died, Mom decided to pack up and move us to the middle of the ocean to be closer to my uncle. Both of them want me to start this 'Island Challenge,' but, come on, that isn't even a real Pokemon League. What good could a stupid place like Alola do for me?
1. Chapter 1

_The consequences of this link technology on our society will go far beyond their uses in industry, science, and pokemon training. It affects our perception of time and reality. Our eyes now do not first go to the stars to search for and wonder about the mysterious 'other.' We turn to our neighbors, our friends, our families. We turn to ourselves._

 _Our own worlds, our own lives, become infinite wells of questions, 'what ifs.' Other Kantos that do not have the instant communication we enjoy. Or, in the matter of pokemon, the various phyla we take as a matter of fact, like Fairy, Dark, or Steel, or the glory of mega evolution. Other Kantos that might, through some unimaginable series of events, be alone in the world, without the company of other nations, or even its familial regions. These global musings easily turn to our own lives. Other versions of 'us' living and dying. Inevitable thoughts of friends and lovers we might have met, or not, can gnaw on us._

 _Many pleasures we take for granted that make our lives easier here are absent there, things that give us more power, both over ourselves and our own destinies. We gain the impression of a world in which our partnerships with pokemon have a harder, sterner, edge. But, such as in the case of the Kalos and Hoenn wars, our power gave us the ability to turn our freedom into unprecedented destruction that would undoubtedly be viewed as a parable of warning to our alternate selves, who, otherwise, we might be tempted to view as beneath us. They are not the noble savage, and neither are we the enlightened minds of a blessed future._

 _This interconnectedness that our fated placement in the multiverse has made gives us power over our lives, the lives of others, and the lives of pokemon. The stakes are higher in our 'edition' of reality. Our heights are the highest. Our losses are devastating. May the gods who created our station give us grace to live up to the challenge of being ourselves._

-Silph Group President Yataro Iwasaki, 3015 AE, "What We Have Found." The first sanctioned public statement concerning the confirmation of alternate universes, a year after the LINK Team first established communication with the Prof. Samuel Oak of Universe II, who was using a version of their Silph's link technology. LINK Team's revealing of the existence of the other twenty eight known universes soon followed.

\- (-o-) -

My uncle is scheduled to vid me in ten minutes.

Mom made me get out of my room an hour ago, early, to get ready ahead of time. I showered, then dressed in the baggy shirt and pants I slept in. She gave up on me trying beyond basic decency and combed out my hair into something manageable, chose my clothes, and almost started dressing me herself like I was a helpless child before I started yelling at her to get out of my room.

"Make a good impression," she said. "Put on your cute floral toboggan." She took it out of a packed box in the corner. She didn't ask why I put it away.

I see my reflection faintly in the glossy monitor, wearing said toboggan.

Mom had changed my laptop wallpaper while I showered to a picture of some beach she visited while scouting out the new house. I'll change it back in a bit. She left some travel brochure on the desk too.

I tug on my hat. It's soft. Warm.

From what I've heard, it would be too hot to wear anymore soon. Here, I could wear it for a few solid months, put it away for the summer, then open it up out of my winter clothes drawer and have it hug my skull for the season. Even though it's coming to Alola too, eventually, it's arriving weeks later and headed straight for long term storage. That weird red hat might as well be going away forever.

I grimace.

Uncle Kukui sends me a com request five minutes too early.

I can hear my mother's voice sitting on my shoulder. "It's midnight there. He's making time for you. You can at least recognize that." Through the fog of my unease, some of that rings true. I'll make an effort.

I start smiling only when I click to make the request expand into a livestream of him at his lab.

Moonlight filters through a large skylight. Uncle is not wearing a shirt. Only a labcoat and a baseball cap. He leans into the camera to adjust its angle, pushing his tanned pecs further into the frame. Satisfied with the view, he sits back in his chair.

I continue to smile a smile that pulls my face taut.

He smiles in return. "Mizuki, good to see you. How is the prep going?"

I tell him that it's going fine.

A curious little Rockruff crowds into the frame, staring at me through its end of the transmission. It barks, wagging its tail. Uncle scratches its neck until it's distracted enough to not be entranced by a new human face.

My smile relaxes into something a bit more real.

My uncle calms it down and promises that, "Mizuki will be here soon." Rockruff barks in understanding and leaps to the ground off Uncle's lap. "Sorry about that," he says.

"It's fine. I know how it is," I say.

He nods and gives me a thumbs up. "Just so you know, your Trainer Passport is done and is waiting for you at the house, along with all the things you and your mom shipped over. Got it all this morning. Good timing, yeah?"

My smile returns to a stretched politeness as I agree that all of this is, in fact, good timing.

"So, do you think you're going to start the Island Challenge as soon as you get here, or are you going to take some time to adjust?"

I tell him that I'm not sure. I don't tell him that I would have already been two gyms deep into a real Pokemon League if I had my way.

"Either way, I'm happy to introduce you to everyone. There's a few people I definitely want you to meet."

I agree to his suggestion.

He nods, smile growing. As if on cue, the Rockruff from earlier jumps up and fills the screen, wagging its tail madly. A Pikipek lands on Uncle's shoulder, trilling. He manages to push through past the insistent little dog Pokemon and say, "10-4, good buddy! I'll get everyone together once you're here and let 'em know you're on your way."

I thank him.

"Have a good flight."

"Thanks, Uncle Kukui," I say again.

I close the vid window, then slump in my seat, sighing. With a few clicks, I change the desktop wallpaper back to the family picture the champion took of all of us on the summit of Mt. Silver a few years ago. Everyone bundled up like pastel marshmallows. Even dad. My weird red hat is super out of place here at the top of the world, but Dad wanted me to wear my new present. Everyone's wearing serious high altitude gear, and there I am with that thing. With me piggybacking on him, latched around his neck, which of course wasn't a problem at all for a guy like him, the two of us look like some kind of bulbous flowered plant, or a hunchbacked venusaur.

Mom's leaning into his side, smiling, head just reaching to his shoulder.

The first light of morning comes through the circular window at the peak of my bedroom's peaked roof.

I close the laptop.

I reach across my desk, crush and crumple the travel brochure in my fist, and throw it into the trash can.

I drag my hands across my puffy red-eyed face, wiping dried tears with the heel of my palm.

She means well.

I take the brochure out and smooth it, pulling it back and forth against the side of my desk. I open it, seeing if it's still readable. The article on that one Silph daughter company that's focused on pokemon conservation doesn't look as crisp as it did a few minutes ago, but I can still read it.

I jump up, walk out of my bedroom, wood beams creaking under my feet. Down three flights of steep stairs, past empty rooms, and out the cabin's front door, where that invigorating mixture of piercing morning sun and higher altitude cold hits me full force. I pull my hat more tightly around my head.

Mom's sitting on the front stoop, mine and Mom's few carry-on bags behind her on the porch. I sit next to her.

She puts her arm around my shoulders and pulls me closer.

"How was your talk?" she asks.

"Fine," I reply.

We watch the sun rise more, dew evaporating into a high mist over the pine forest.

She shakes me, hugging my side more tightly. "You wanna have one more go before the League picks us up?"

I furrow my brow as I look up at her. "All of the pokemon are in Alola though."

She takes two pokeballs off her waist and rolls them around in her palm before tossing me one.

"I kept these," she points to the training yard with a thumb, smiling impishly, letting go of me and jogging over to the roughly chalked out battle arena.

I take a look at the markings on the back of my pokeball and laugh. "Alright, fine." I jog after her.

The training area is a flattened rock field about the size of a football pitch, roughly patterned from all the different kinds of rocks Dad's pokemon have patched it with over the years. The fog lights that sit on each corner turned off automatically a while ago.

Each of us take our places. I move my long rough black hair out of my face and tie it around the back in a thick knot so it doesn't get in the way.

Mom looks at me.

"What?" I say, but, while saying it, I answer the question in your own mind. She's said before that, when I do that, it makes me look a lot like him. Wild mountain man black hair, tied off just before a pokemon battle, framing the face I inherited from mom, one of traditional Kanto femininity.

"Nothing," she says before shifting her expression into her 'Fun Mom' form. "Let's get started!" she yells, throwing out her pokeball, exploding in red light. I throw out mine too, but much, much higher up.

Mom's Persian appears on her side, already crouched, big white eyes flickering in amusement.

Her Onix appears on my half of the arena, towering higher than the fog lights, roaring in, what I imagine, triumphant commemoration of the event.

"Standard opening, Persian!" Mom shouts.

Nasty Plot into a Hyper Voice. If she really wanted to go for the win immediately, she'd use her Rock Opening, replacing Hyper Voice with Water Pulse. This is training.

"Vocal Wall!" I command.

A little something Dad had been working on to counter this opening. A variation on Roar so loud that it negates attacks depending on sound. I can see Mom grinning from across the arena.

Persian's fur is on end from Nasty Plot as it digs its claws into the rock, breathing deep.

Onix rears back, like a lion claiming its territory, filling its lungs.

The Indigo Mountains resound with the cries of our pokemon.

Fifteen minutes later, both of us are panting, soaked with sweat, sitting on the front stoop.

"You let me win," I say between breaths, laughing.

"You can't prove it," says Mom.

I huff in exasperation. "You trained that Persian specifically to fight against high level rock pokemon!"

Mom shrugs comically. "She's off her game."

I play tackle her, laughing, which she easily intercepts with a round of tickles. After a few minutes of wraslin', the two of us, covered even more in dirt and pebbles, are sprawled on our front lawn, watching the sun rise higher, waiting for our ride.

Mom taps me on the shoulder. I turn over to ask her what was up, then see her expression has become very serious.

She pulls something long out of her pocket and hands me a silvery tungsten chain with two thick copper rings holding two stones, one blue, with hints of purple and green and black veins intersecting across, and another with silver and gray coloring and those same black webs.

I stare at them, pooled in my palms.

"He gave them to you, specifically," says Mom.

Dad's keystone and Steelixite.

I do my best to hold back tears, to limited success. Mom gets up, picks me up, and holds me close, cooing and shushing at me, running her hands through my hair.

The two of us clean up and compose ourselves before Lance and his dragons arrive to take us to the airport, my new keepsake around my neck, held tight against my chest.

\- (-o-) -

Hey, thanks for reading! If you'd like more, please leave a review, a follow, or a favorite. If you do not want more, please also leave a review, a follow, and a favorite.

This chapter's song is 'Rylyn' by Andy McKee.


	2. Chapter 2

In 'character', the Elite Four are intended to be the most intimidating and iconic trainers on the planet. An ice goddess, ghost communion grandma, and the international police's own undisputed master of dragons and other 'untamable' pokemon, complete with dramatic red silk cape. A few layers of professionalism are all that keep them from being Kanto and Johto's international mascots. Don't mess with our pokemon, or our country, they say.

All of this theatrical posturing is undercut by their champion, a physically underwhelming twenty-something in a white t-shirt and jeans, but with Red's record smashing wunderkind turned dynastic tenure at the top of the world, giving the impression that only someone that awesome could beat them, intention and reality shake hands at the end of the day and agree that the Elite Four are awesome.

Out of their costumes, after stepping outside the characters that made them renowned, they are just my adopted aunt, grandma, and uncle. The first two of those three I can see distantly below as I circle the Four's private airport, the latter leading our group of three saddled dragonite. Lance is dressed in something more appropriate than his usual Dracula cosplay, but just as ostentatious, his ace pilot get-up: a leather jacket, leather pants, thick riding boots, a white scarf fluttering violently behind him like a weather vane in a hurricane, dark reflective aviators, and a white beret sporting the crosshatched Elite Four logo.

Lance raises a pearl-white gloved hand and signals to the orange flock, pointing to the ground. I clutch the saddle horn with a death grip as my Dragonite dives; my other hand is pressed against the keystone and mega stone hanging around my neck. In the moment, its safety is a higher priority than me slipping out of my straps and free falling to my death into the private jet meant to take me to a new life.

A few hundred yards above the earth, my steed rears upward and flaps down, the force of its wing strokes booming in my ears. I imagine the cartoonish plush Dragonite toy the Four sell at the Plateau gift shop, with its itty bitty wings, and laugh. The wing span of the thing I'm riding is monstrous. With such a huge body, it has to be. How would me surviving this dive be possible otherwise?

Everyone touches down on the tarmac. Lance jumped off mid-landing and is already helping Mom dismount, along with our few bags, handing them off to an attendant. In turn, my Dragonite leans to the side to let me out of its high saddle. I give it a few soft pats in thanks, but, as I'm walking away toward everyone, he whines. I turn to see it gazing at me with its big watery dragon eyes, pawing in my direction.

I feel a pang in my chest. I walk back and let him nuzzle me with his cheek, and I hug his face as well as a teen girl can hug something a few dozen times her size.

"I'll miss you too, Charlie," I say.

Charlie whines a bit more before he lets me go.

I turn back toward the plane and find that Mom and the three Elite are gathered in a semi-circle, with the backdrop of the small plane and all its staff preparing for departure, watching me and Charlie, smiling.

"Uh," I say.

Lorelei, dressed in a ruffly white blouse and black slacks, long raspberry red hair tucked into a ponytail, chuckles into her hand, then waves me over, while Grandma Agatha, in her usual purple tracksuit, is waving at me genteelly, like her hand might fall off if she's too enthusiastic.

After I hug both of them, Agatha kissing my cheek, Lance calls us all over to just in front of the stairway leading up into the jet. I follow after them. Lance then holds up his hand for me to stop, then points at a point a few yards away from him. I hesitate. He arranges his face to say something like, _"Trust me, little weirdo, and go along with the production."_

"Uh, OK," I say, moving to and standing right on the spot.

The three Elites arrange themselves in a line in front of me, hands folded behind their backs, expressions shifting into their professional selves. Mom, in line with them, does her best to copy their posture, as well as impersonate Dad, lips pursed, 'secretly' tensing her moderate biceps to make them look bigger-a fraction of what Dad had-and pinching her face together so it all meets at an angry wrinkly point between her eyes, nose, and eyebrows.

I can't help but laugh. She looks constipated. Everyone looks over to Mom to see what I'm laughing at. They just manage to stay professional, lips twitching upward.

"Mizuki," says Lance, voice clear and resounding, "In recognition of all your accomplishments-"

"Like playing 'dress-up' with Dewgong when you were four," says Lorelei.

"Or that one time two years ago you 'helped' me make nachos and you gave me blue cheese instead of cheddar and it made the whole thing look like an alien was sick all over the chips," says Grandma Agatha.

"And all the other times you've made life here at the top of the Pokemon world feel like a home," says Lance, taking out a small glossy pin.

I startle when everyone, including Mom, takes out their own pins. "Wait, are you re-"

Lance continues, "We present you with these badges, proof that we have encountered you and been changed."

Each one walks up and gives me their pin, Lorelei's heather blue-gray, Agatha's grape violet, Lance's red-orange, exactly the same color as his hair, and my mother, with 'Bruno's' pin, a dusty brown. Besides their glossy coloring, made from polished precious stones, everything else in their pins is shaped and pressed from solid gold.

"Obviously, ah," Lance stops himself, choking up a bit, "Obviously, you haven't beaten us. But those Alolans don't need to know that, right?"

I run up and hug him.

"Ah," he says, before eventually returning the embrace. "We left some trainer jackets in the plane for you to choose from. To have a place to put the pins. Would have given you one here, but Lori said it'd be better to give you a few to choose from." I mumble some thanks. Lance glances over at Mom, then whispers into my ear, "I was looking forward to you giving Red a good shot, you know." I hug him more tightly. He continues, "After this is all over and you're on your own, come over and show our gym leaders a good time, yeah?" I nod my head.

After letting go and giving Lorelei and Agatha, who is openly weeping, another set of hugs, and giving everyone a bit of time with Mom, the two of us walk up the red plush stairwell, everyone waving goodbye, asking to see us soon.

The jet's airlock door seals in front of me, slowly hiding my friends from view, until they're gone.

A few moments later, the jet has started taxiing away.

An attendant coughs into her palm, then ushers me into the small cabin. After I'm buckled across from where mom is already seated, the attendant asks if I want something to drink.

I tell her that I'm fine.

I look out the window, to where we all were. Everyone's cleared out.

"So, Kukui has already chosen some restaurants for us to go to with him and his wife," says Mom, glancing between me and the laptop on our table, where she's typing away.

I hum in the affirmative.

"Seafood. Really good. Locally caught." she says.

"Uh huh," I say.

"Apparently, they have a young assistant who's around your age. She'll be there too. New to Alola. Having a bit of a hard time adjusting," she says.

"Uh huh," I say.

She frowns, then goes back to her laptop. She's probably working on something important with the Archipelago project. Hiring. Development. Research. So on.

I take my laptop out of my backpack, plug in my earbuds on both ends, making me deaf. After booting, I do not look up information about the Island Challenge. I log into Smogon.

A few updates on my META threads. I glance over at the General Discussion board. The "Bruno Memorial" thread isn't pinned anymore, but people are still posting. I've never read it.

I glance over at my mother, still engrossed in her work.

I'll look at it later. Maybe.

I navigate away to the league discussion board. Gym watchers from every region reporting on up and comers. The new seasons in Kanto and Johto are the main topic of conversation. A handful of the usual posters have a memetic obsession to find the successor to "Red-sama's legacy," so a lot of attention is payed to anyone successful who's also under sixteen. Lots of photos of pokemon in action. Lots of analysis. Training. Breeding. Rapidly constructed trainer profiles. Internet sleuthing. Challengers' home cities and mentorship history. Even though their level of devotion to head hunting can be a bit weird, I sort of used to pump myself up imagining myself as a topic of discussion there. My eyes are naturally drawn to the league participants boards, private, only unlocked if you can verify to admins that you're currently registered. So much for that now.

An idea comes. One I'm not entirely comfortable with.

I tap the touchpad to a slow beat.

Mid-thought, the plane accelerates at drag-race speed, pushing me down and back into my plush seat, hard. I grunt. If it weren't too hard to move during ascent, I'd still be browsing Smogon. I've travelled with Dad so often that this really doesn't excite me the way it did when I was a kid. There's a bit still there that moves me to look outside the window at the rapidly shrinking mountains, purple, snow capped, but that's about all kid-Mizuki is going to wring out of me.

Soon, we're at a stable climb and I can get back to wasting my time on the internet. I've made up my mind. Being only ten hours away from Alola has made it more real. Alola isn't just a promised dread squatting over my head, like it's been for the past six months, but a real place where people live, shop, raise kids, and spend time not having a Pokemon League. That shift makes what I'm about to do easier to frame as natural curiosity, instead of the first step on the way to giving in.

I head over to the "Bingo Hall Leagues" board, a dedicated to smaller amateur leagues usually centered around regions without official gyms, like Alola, or large intramural city leagues, the name a tongue-in-cheek reference to how far down on the "card" things like this are to the hivemind of the board. After searching and scanning a few related threads, just a few "Alola Represent!" style threads-in other words, dumb uninteresting stuff-I start typing.

 _Topic: Alola Island Challenge_

 _In: Boards ► Bingo Hall Leagues_

 _What do you know about it? Pretty much anything. (Besides what's on Wiki, duh.) Level of difficulty. Structure. Famous trainers to come out of it. People who're on the scene now. Etc._

I hit enter, and it's up. Now my wait begins. Bingo's such a niche board, so it'll take a while before anyone has anything to say.

It's as good a time as any to go "shopping" for my gift. I scoot out, walk down the hallway, past the kitchen and dining room, and find the bedroom with my name on it.

I open the door, look inside, and laugh. Jackets and matching track pants are laid out on my bed like Lance was fanning a deck of cards, or presenting them on a twenty four hour shopping channel-with an audience of one.

I walk over and notice a small card sitting on the bed.

"Show 'em how it's done!" it says. Signed by Lance. Underneath, it has something scribbled on it in Grandmother's handwriting. "Pick the purple one." Sure enough, there's a Gengar-purple track set. I laugh under my breath the whole time I'm looking through the jackets. All the same basic pattern, with three stripes going down each sleeve and pant leg. Handful of colors. Half blank. Half with the Elite Four logo. Two of them have the national Kanto colors, white on red and red on white. Another has Alolan colors, but whatever. I check the tags, and my smile gets wider. These are the same kind as the limited edition sets they commissioned from Adios Sports for their own personal use. A few have been auctioned at charity events. I try on the white stripes on red. It fits me perfectly.

They commissioned a whole new set. All in my measurements. Same they'd do for the Four. Or a new champion.

I take out the hard cloth insert in the inside left breast pocket, pin their badges on it, and put it back in its zippered see-through sleeve, for easy, safe, dramatic revelations of your towering pokemon trainer status.

I practice in the mirror.

Open the jacket!

"Hah!" I yell.

Yeah.

I check myself out a bit more. The Kanto Elite Four logo is impossible to miss on the back. Lines of heather blue-gray, grape violet, red-orange, dusty brown, in a tight multicolor weave, making a simple outline of a pokeball. Awesome.

I change out of my crusty jeans into the red stripes on white track pants from the other national color set. They're so ridiculously comfy. I don't look half bad either.

Yeah.

And, spin.

"Hah!" I yell.

Yeah.

National pride has its place. A bedroom in a private jet owned by the Kanto Elite Four is one of those places.

I'm forcing myself to forget that I'm not headed out tomorrow to kick Brock's butt. Besides, this'd be a bit ridiculous in Kanto. Like draping yourself in the flag while battling. The only thing worse would be to cosplay Red-while also wearing the flag. All this plays in a foreign country though. Mysterious foreigner. Projection of assumed power. A bit cocky. Someone might really want to put me in my place, and get distracted and sloppy. Combine that with a quiet attitude and I'm playing mind games without even trying.

The fact that I sincerely want to drape myself in Kanto's flag every moment I'm in Alola has nothing to do with it.

I yawn violently.

Good grief.

Well, actually. It's something, like, what? Two in the morning in Alola? I should be asleep, right? And there's a bed right here.

I fold up the spare jackets and pants, even the Alolan one, set them off in a corner. I take the stones off from around my neck, hang up what I'm wearing now, toboggan, jacket, so on, and change into the regular complementary PJs in the small dresser in the wooden mattress frame, put the stones back around my neck, then plop down in my bed. My plane bed.

I lay there, looking out at the port style window, sun beginning to lower over the Orange Ocean. I briefly consider checking my thread on Smogon, but, whatever. Those replies will stay there no matter when I check them.

I can't see much of the outside from here, but I can see the faint orange glow of the sun reflecting off the dust, clouds, and water.

I decide to postpone my nap until I can see the sun set. I take lunch in my room.

After a few hours, with me drifting in and out of half-consciousness, the sun nears the horizon. So so pretty. And I mean it. No matter what sucky things await me in the middle of the ocean, the ocean itself isn't so bad. It's pretty great. Seeing it from a sky bed is even better.

I lay my mostly exhausted body on the mattress.

Here's an idea. If I just hang out at the beach to wait for the sunset, wearing my Kanto jacket, zipped open, with a swimsuit underneath, all day every day, until I can head back to home and start my real life, maybe it won't be so bad.

What a good idea.

Yeah.

\- (-o-) -

A Pikipek is knocking on my door.

"Go away!" I yell.

"Miss Kalani? Miss Kalani?" says the Pikipek.

"No!" I exclaim.

"Miss Kalani, we've arrived." says the Pikipek.

"Thirty more minutes!" I demand, reasonably.

"She's like this every morning," says Mother.

My eyes are split open like a log. I sit up. I look out the port window.

I'm at an airport. The moon is out.

"Hon? Ready to head out? We're in Alola."

I groan a deep groan.

"She's like this every morning," says Mother.

* * *

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This chapter's song is 'Sleepless' by Deadmau5.


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